Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 72

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 72
—I am not a snake! Tus is not a snake but a water dragon!
“A dragon? What are you looking at to say—”
…Just a horned snake, really.
From what I know, dragons in this world look like actual dragons.
Why are you a snake?
Regardless, Tus bristled for a moment before gazing out the window, then grew dejected again.
—I want to go back soon.
Without warning, thick tears began to fall in droplets.
I was flustered at first, but after two days, I’d grown accustomed to it and naturally wiped them away with my sleeve.
He kept missing home.
—My master can’t even hold a fork without Tus….
“Then why did you leave the side of a master you cherish so dearly?”
—….
There it is again—silence at the crucial moment.
I gave up asking and fixed my gaze on the window.
‘Well, I’ll find out soon enough.’
Because I could see we’d already reached the castle, having passed through the city.
A massive Dragon’s Castle came into view as our carriage approached.
* * *
“Letting you go won’t be difficult, child.”
Bellus Aquasiadel had actually anticipated everything that would happen the moment he stepped into the castle.
The instant he entered the Dragon’s Castle.
“…Orca. Ah, you mean the Aquasiadels?”
That remarkably sharp and cold response, laced with contempt beneath it—he’d expected exactly that.
It came from the one who introduced himself as a servant of the Dragon Duke’s Castle.
Bellus had never attended the Dragon’s Festival, but in his younger days, he’d participated in imperial conferences across the realm alongside the Matriarch Ocula.
Naturally, those gatherings were filled with land-dwelling beast-kin.
‘That musty stench….’
Yes. He caught that same odor now.
They mocked aquatic creatures for their fishy smell, yet they themselves reeked of something truly foul.
No, that particular acrid stench was distinctly theirs.
Of course, both races judged from their own perspectives.
“You’ve come from quite far away.”
This remark, translated, meant something like ‘Why did you travel all that distance with aching legs? There’s nothing for you here.’
“I shall inform my master.”
It was no accident that aquatic beast-kin families had ceased attending this Dragon’s Festival.
This place was where one could experience firsthand the discrimination rampant throughout the empire.
Bellus recalled words the Orca Family Matriarch had spoken during his childhood at a conference with land-dwelling families.
“That’s precisely why I despise those wretches.”
“You’re too weak to be blown away by my fins. Your mouth is just loose.”
“You lion-shit bastards. I should rip out all your teeth.”
Among aquatic beastfolk, the most vicious and severe curses were those related to land animals.
It was a telling measure of how vast and deep their anger and hatred ran.
Moreover, those were words spoken by the Orca Family Matriarch, who had half-killed those who participated after the conference ended.
Bellus, who had witnessed the mockery that emerged from that conference, thought Ocula had acted quite naturally.
From the next conference onward, whenever Ocula appeared alone, the heads of the land animal families fell silent of their own accord.
‘But what about this person?’
Ocula Aquasiadel was among the most bellicose Matriarchs in history.
In her youth, she was a Matriarch who walked about drenched in blood every single day.
A person who ascended to her position stained with her siblings’ blood.
Even accounting for the orca’s nature, she enjoyed combat rather than avoided it.
In contrast, Pierre Aquasiadel, known to be as strong as the Matriarch herself, had lived remarkably quietly despite that power.
Of course, he had fought considerably before falling ill.
But that was merely because he did not avoid the fights that came his way.
After his seclusion due to illness, he had been so quiet that some wondered whether he was even alive.
Of course, his presence was not something that could be erased by living quietly.
“…I’m afraid there may be no vacant rooms remaining, as many distinguished guests have already arrived. I must ask for your understanding on this matter, members of the Aquasiadel family.”
So the question was how to respond to such an attitude.
Bellus watched Pierre’s reaction with curiosity, then felt a small disappointment.
Despite the considerable rudeness displayed, his expression remained unchanged, as if it were of no consequence.
“You’re saying we cannot stay here?”
“Huh, what?! We can’t stay?”
Calypso, who had been nestled in Pierre’s arms, suddenly lifted her head.
In truth, Calypso had been too busy patting the pocket where Tus was crying pitifully to respond.
So she hadn’t reacted until now, but she managed to catch those last words.
‘What is this? This won’t do!’
Moreover, Calypso had carefully hidden Tus in a pocket within her embrace, worried that the Dragon’s Palace Servants might discover him first and take him away.
For some reason, Tus also seemed reluctant to encounter the Servants of this place.
In any case, that wasn’t the important part!
‘We can’t stay in the castle! This won’t do!’
“S-, no. Father.”
Bellus raised his eyebrows.
The moment Calypso’s form of address changed, Pierre’s expression shifted.
“What’s wrong?”
Calypso wasn’t ignorant of the land animals’ discrimination, but she hadn’t expected them to refuse even a single room.
That was because in the first cycle, the third iteration, Calypso had been the Matriarch and was just as bellicose as Ocula.
If Ocula had merely ended the conference and mocked them, Calypso wouldn’t have even tolerated that.
“What is this, you bastards? Say it again. What about aquatic animals?”
She was someone who had gotten what she wanted by delivering a beating before the conference even began.
Second, the City of Dragons was a place brimming with the pride of land-dwelling beast-kin.
The Dragon Duke himself dwells on land!
Because of this, this particularly conservative place harbored an even stronger tendency to look down upon aquatic beast-kin.
As a result, they displayed such an attitude even toward Ocula Aquasiadel, who represented aquatic beast-kin.
‘Hmph, it’s already disrespectful enough that these foul-smelling creatures have entered the Dragon Duke’s castle. If they lodge a formal complaint, I’ll simply pretend I can’t refuse and provide them a room.’
To be precise, the Retainer of this place was a beast-kin who had never encountered Ocula Aquasiadel.
Calypso grasped Pierre’s sleeve and asked desperately.
“We can’t sleep in the Dragon’s Palace? Really…?”
Father, that can’t be right, can it?
Pierre nodded slightly.
“From what the Retainer is saying, it seems that’s the case.”
“Ah….”
It was the moment Calypso’s face grew dejected.
Bellus watched feet moving faster than the wind.
Crash!!!
“Cough!”
The Dragon’s Palace Servant, sent flying in an instant, coughed and tried to lift his head abruptly.
No, he tried to lift it, but the pain was too severe for him to manage.
Calypso blinked her eyes.
Rather than being surprised at being hit, her expression was one of incomprehension—’Why did you hit him anyway?’
It’s not like hitting him would produce money….
‘Well, he did deserve it for treating us poorly.’
As the regressor’s somewhat twisted sense of morality came to light, Pierre opened his mouth.
“You’ll need a room, won’t you?”
“Huh? Yes.”
The moment Calypso answered, countless streams of water materialized beside Pierre.
“What are you planning to do?”
“It will come out.”
“Huh?”
“If I keep hitting him.”
“Um…?”
Pierre’s voice carried its usual slow and languid tone.
However, the streams of water hovering around him spoke a different language entirely.
The Retainer felt a chill run down his spine.
I’m going to die, this is really going to kill me….
The ‘Power of the Land’ possessed by the Imperial Family and the Black Panther Duke’s House.
There was certainly a power that opposed it among aquatic beast-kin as well.
A power wielded only by the apex predators among them….
“Father, if you kill him like that, who will guide us….”
“I see. If I just trample him until the brink of death, a solution should present itself.”
At such a crude declaration, the Retainer of the Castle and the warriors guarding the fortress swallowed hard.
Though the warriors stood alongside him, they remained frozen by the killing intent that pierced to their very bones.
Thud, thud—as Pierre advanced, a torrent of water suddenly pierced the air beside the Retainer’s face with a deafening crash.
The raccoon-human Retainer chose submission over resistance.
That wasn’t merely a fish—it was a predator.
The fear encoded in his very genes awakened his instincts.
“I-I apologize. It seems there was a misunderstanding…”
“A misunderstanding?”
Crash!
“How do you intend to atone for that?”
“…”
“An apology in words alone is worthless.”
Well, he had a point there.
Calypso nestled comfortably in Pierre’s embrace and nodded slightly.
‘Thank goodness I sent the Herring Maids and Misa along with the Knights to load the carriages.’
Calypso observed the scene before her with perfect composure.
‘If he’s only going to apologize with words, why apologize at all? I’d be dead.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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